"Children of Men"/"Temptation of wolves"
Jan. 2nd, 2007 05:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alexandralI watched “Children of Men” from ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
trailer_spot’s recommendation and keep returning to it in my thoughts already for two weeks. In a way, this film turned my world upside down. If you haven’t seen it yet – this is definitely must-see of this winter.
Synopsis In the future world where women lost the ability to bare children, Theodore Faron (Clive Owen) is helping a woman pregnant with child to find a safe place. The story takes place in England 2027 where any emigration is illegal and where anyone who is an illegal immigrant is put into immigration camps, no much better then concentration camps.
Director and cinematography Mexican-born director Alfonso Cuarón is known for his adaptation of “Harry Porter and the Prizoner of Askaban”. It is difficult for me to judge because I have never read any of “Harry Porter” books, but this is my favourite out of the Harry Porter movies so far.
His latest film, “Children of Men” is filmed in experimental and very unusual way. This includes innovative camera angles and amazing feel for colour and composition. The film starts as autumnal story of dying and decay, but towards the end this mood changes for something new. One of the final scenes of street-battle was filmed in one take with the clever use of pyrothecnics and this gives it a goose-bumps inducing feel of something happening before your very eyes, and this feeling followed me through the whole film , it felt like this is really happening. The other interesting thing was to convey information with objects and composition as well as with the dialogue.
Review
This film is a free adaptation of P.D.James novel “The Children of Men”, but it is a film of its own. One of the things that practically “jump at you” when you watch this film is that “Children of Men” encompasses many Biblical elements. This is everywhere – in the title, in the birth of a special child, in the long journey through the wilderness, in the crossing of the sea and in the similarity of long years of bareness with the prophecies that “the Earth will be barren”.
Is this to be our future? The future we are making ourselves with our own hands by exploiting our planet?
But the thing that affected me the most, even more then fabulous cinematography or brilliant acting (especially in Clive Owen’s part) was the honest and even brutal way of looking at the xenophobia and racism problem. I don’t know the situation in the other countries from the first hand, but in England of recent years the immigration issue has risen into being something of HUGE proportions. You can’t help but see the articles in the certain type of press where immigrants and asylum-seekers are presented as a threat to Britain, as some people who just come in millions to poor UK to consume our tax resources. Take me right, I don’t think that free emigration is the answer to everyone’s problem, but at the same time I find this way of thinking “they are here to rob us” to be really terrible and unfair. And I am glad that “Children of Men” makes us look what is an extreme point of the fear of emigrants, the way our country can go.
Screencaps from the film
Soundtrack Is just out of this world. My favourite is Italian singer Franco Battiato’s take of “Ruby Tuesday”. One of the strange facts I found while looking for Ruby Tuesday’s lyrics is that this song was one of the songs that were forbidden to broadcast in US during the period following 11 of September 2001. I don’t understand why, I must say!!
"Temptation of Wolves"
I have also watched Korean film "Temptation of Wolves" and didn't like it very much at all. My thoughts on it are Here, in![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
dorama_chat
trailer_spot’s recommendation and keep returning to it in my thoughts already for two weeks. In a way, this film turned my world upside down. If you haven’t seen it yet – this is definitely must-see of this winter.Synopsis In the future world where women lost the ability to bare children, Theodore Faron (Clive Owen) is helping a woman pregnant with child to find a safe place. The story takes place in England 2027 where any emigration is illegal and where anyone who is an illegal immigrant is put into immigration camps, no much better then concentration camps.
Director and cinematography Mexican-born director Alfonso Cuarón is known for his adaptation of “Harry Porter and the Prizoner of Askaban”. It is difficult for me to judge because I have never read any of “Harry Porter” books, but this is my favourite out of the Harry Porter movies so far.
His latest film, “Children of Men” is filmed in experimental and very unusual way. This includes innovative camera angles and amazing feel for colour and composition. The film starts as autumnal story of dying and decay, but towards the end this mood changes for something new. One of the final scenes of street-battle was filmed in one take with the clever use of pyrothecnics and this gives it a goose-bumps inducing feel of something happening before your very eyes, and this feeling followed me through the whole film , it felt like this is really happening. The other interesting thing was to convey information with objects and composition as well as with the dialogue.
Review
This film is a free adaptation of P.D.James novel “The Children of Men”, but it is a film of its own. One of the things that practically “jump at you” when you watch this film is that “Children of Men” encompasses many Biblical elements. This is everywhere – in the title, in the birth of a special child, in the long journey through the wilderness, in the crossing of the sea and in the similarity of long years of bareness with the prophecies that “the Earth will be barren”.
Is this to be our future? The future we are making ourselves with our own hands by exploiting our planet?
But the thing that affected me the most, even more then fabulous cinematography or brilliant acting (especially in Clive Owen’s part) was the honest and even brutal way of looking at the xenophobia and racism problem. I don’t know the situation in the other countries from the first hand, but in England of recent years the immigration issue has risen into being something of HUGE proportions. You can’t help but see the articles in the certain type of press where immigrants and asylum-seekers are presented as a threat to Britain, as some people who just come in millions to poor UK to consume our tax resources. Take me right, I don’t think that free emigration is the answer to everyone’s problem, but at the same time I find this way of thinking “they are here to rob us” to be really terrible and unfair. And I am glad that “Children of Men” makes us look what is an extreme point of the fear of emigrants, the way our country can go.
Screencaps from the film
Soundtrack Is just out of this world. My favourite is Italian singer Franco Battiato’s take of “Ruby Tuesday”. One of the strange facts I found while looking for Ruby Tuesday’s lyrics is that this song was one of the songs that were forbidden to broadcast in US during the period following 11 of September 2001. I don’t understand why, I must say!!
"Temptation of Wolves"
I have also watched Korean film "Temptation of Wolves" and didn't like it very much at all. My thoughts on it are Here, in
dorama_chat
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2007-01-03 11:36 pm (UTC)Of course! I just keep thinking of him as Jesus because during the movie he's starting to wear those shoes, I think they are called flip-flops in English (actually one of the few things I didn't really like in the movie), and in German they are casually called something like Jesus-slippers. :D
the animals weren’t barren, or were they?
No, I think for the most part they weren't (as far as I remember). Though a lot of them were on the farm and in places where they would probably be running around freely anyway (the camp, Jasper Palmer's house).
no subject
Date: 2007-01-05 10:20 am (UTC)I missed the significance of Theo's loosing his shoes, but I think now that there was some symbolism in it, like Tho loosing the protection of his old ways. It is interesting that you don't like it. Why? What else did you think was not so good?
no subject
Date: 2007-01-05 10:04 pm (UTC)I thought there was another (minor) thing I didn't like. I tried to remember during the day but without success. I think it was something when they fled the rebel farm. Obviously it wasn't important otherwise I would remember. :)
Anything you weren't satisfied with?
no subject
Date: 2007-01-06 10:37 am (UTC)** And that icon of yours always makes me laugh, may be because my daughter went through thumb-sucking. :D
no subject
Date: 2007-01-06 11:56 am (UTC)Even though I just like the icon on its own, 'Robin Hood' is one of my earliest childhood memories of seeing a movie at the theatre. :)
no subject
Date: 2007-01-06 06:10 pm (UTC)I just didn't think it was necessary for the story. :D
Though that doesn't mean that I would be able to be present at a real birth (I really don't know if I could). :)
This what my husband used to say. :D But I guess he was very happy that he saw the moment when our daughter was born. He cried, and this was the first time I saw him in tears.